Concours de photos 2026

Image #1 Hommage aux participantes et participants de la recherche

par / by: Martin Roy 

Description:

Cette œuvre est née d’une rencontre entre l’imaginaire humain et l’intelligence artificielle. Elle a été générée par ChatGPT — modèle GPT-5 Thinking mini, à partir d’un prompt conçu sur mesure et inspiré du style GreenSpine, fruit d’un univers créatif nourri par l’écosystème de recherche des centres Neurophotonics et CERVO. Ce style, ancré dans la nanoscopie à fluorescence, a ici servi de tremplin pour donner naissance à une représentation plus humaine et sensible.

Une photographie d’une jeune fille a également été intégrée comme inspiration, guidant la forme et la douceur du visage représenté. Au-delà des textures organiques lumineuses, des contrastes vibrants et des détails finement ciselés, cette image se veut un hommage aux personnes et aux participants de la recherche, adultes comme enfants, dont la contribution va bien au-delà des images issues de la microscopie. Elle illustre la dimension profondément humaine qui sous-tend chaque avancée scientifique.

Image #2 Tempête Cytosquelettique

par / by: Dylan Musiol 

Description:

Image prise en microscopie confocale d’une cellule mammalienne (Cos7) exprimant notre outil permettant de contrôler l’agrégation de la protéine Tau, visible ici en orange. Le marquage bleu correspond aux microtubules ; le blanc correspond alors à la colocalisation entre Tau et les microtubules.
Merci
Bonne journée

Image #3 Cartographie en haute résolution des vaisseaux sanguins du cerveau.

par / by: Floriane Bretheau 

Description:

Cette image représente le réseau vasculaire entier d’un cerveau de souris adulte. La souris a été injectée avec de la lectine fluorescente afin de marquer les vaisseaux sanguins. Une fois perfusée, le cerveau a été extrait et fixé avec de la PFA 4%. La technique de clearing (transparisation de tissus) a été utilisée pour rendre le cerveau transparent tout en conservant le marquage fluorescent de la lectine. Grâce à cette technique et à l’imagerie à feuillet de lumière, nous avons pu imager le cerveau entier et le reconstruire en 3D. L’image représente la projection orthogonal de tous les plans imagés. L’acquisition a été réalisée avec le microscope Lighsheet 7 (Zeiss) de la plateforme de l’Unité d’Imagerie Cellulaire (UIC).

Image #4 Neuroweb

par / by: Louis Baillot 

Description:

Human dopaminergic neurons, kept in culture, cluster together in groups connected by thin projections, weaving a true network. This fragile and complex neuronal culture helps us shed light on the mysteries of Parkinson’s disease in the search for new therapies.

Image #5 A thousand lights in one brain

par / by: Lise Hermant 

Description:

This image shows a maximum-intensity projection of a whole-brain two-photon imaging volume from a 7-days-post-fertilization zebrafish larva expressing the genetically encoded calcium indicator GcAMP6s in all neurons (Tg(elav:H2B-GcAMP6s)).
Neuronal activity is visualized through fluorescence intensity: warm yellow regions indicate highly active neurons, while cooler blue tones correspond to lower activity levels.
Despite containing around 100,000 neurons, the larval zebrafish brain displays a striking degree of functional and anatomical complexity. Major neuronal populations, such as dopaminergic, serotoninergic, GABAergic and glutamatergic neurons, are spatially organized in conserved patterns shared with other vertebrates, including mammals.
Combined with reference atlases, whole-brain functional imaging enables precise localization of neural activity making the zebrafish a powerful model for neurosciences.

Image #6 Pathological garden

par / by: Solène Guenot 

Description:

This view of a mouse hippocampus, obtained via immunostaining and confocal imaging, highlights the presence of two pathological conditions around and inside the yellow cell bodies. After an injection of pathological alpha-synuclein, the main hallmark of Parkinson’s disease, aggregates of this protein visible in red have formed. In this mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease, the presence of alpha-synuclein pathology speeds up the aggregation of protein tau, highlighted by the presence of its pathological form in green. This seeding interaction falls within the wider context of co-proteinopathies, where several misfolded proteins interact in complex neurodegerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Image #7 Neurons, astrocytes and more…

par / by: Julia Obergasteiger 

Description:

Human stem cell-derived dopamine neurons (cyan) and astrocytes (white) expressing a fluorescent marker (tdTomato) under the endogenous promoter of the gene RIT2, which is a risk factor associated to Parkinson’s Disease. RIT2 mRNA is marked with in situ-hybridization in yellow.

Image #8 Expand to Understand

par / by: Alexandra Ricard 

Description:

Using Expansion Microscopy (ExM), this micrograph reveals the subcellular organization of α-synuclein aggregates (red) along the microtubule cytoskeleton (green). Isotropic expansion of the sample enhances spatial resolution, enabling detailed visualization of protein aggregation patterns relevant to Parkinson’s disease. Protein misfolding is no longer abstract, it reshapes the cell from within, leaving a clear signature of the processes underlying Parkinson’s disease.

Image #9 Golden cytoskeleton & Lipid gems

par / by: Walid Idi 

Description:

Confocal microscopy image showing COS-7 cells highlighting the intimate interplay between metabolic organelles. Lipid droplets are stained with LipidSpot (in brilliant blue), while mitochondria are visualized using an anti-Tom20 antibody (in white). The cytoskeletal architecture is revealed by an anti-alpha-tubulin antibody (in gold), offering a detailed view of the microtubule network and its spatial relationship with mitochondria and lipid droplets.

Image #10 Glia Carnival

par / by: Beatriz Elena Lucumi Villegas 

Description:

“Glia Carnival” shows astrocytes within striatal organoids. Organoids are tiny spheres grown from human stem cells that resemble a brain region involved in movement and mood, often affected in Parkinson’s disease and depression. Just as astrocytes support neurons, research provides the foundation to better understand and care for mental health.

Image #11 Passing axon weaving alongside a reticulospinal neuron

par / by: Yasmine Zmantar 

Description:

This image was acquired using confocal microscopy following a lumbar injection of a retrograde viral tracer in mice, to reveal neuronal cell morphology. A glutamatergic reticulospinal neuron (magenta), projecting to the lumbar spinal cord, is shown in close proximity to a passing axon (yellow), illustrating the spatial organization of descending pathways involved in locomotor control.

Image #12 Fuis moi je te suis, suis moi je te fuis.

par / by: Margaux Caperaa 

Description:

Des poissons pour étudier le dévelopement du comportement social ?! Quelle drôle d’idée ! Et pourtant comme vous le montre cette image de jeunes poissons-zèbres en interaction, le poisson-zèbre est un modèle experimental idéal pour étudier la mise en place des comportements sociaux. De la même façon que chez l’humain, on retrouve une vaste diversité de profils sociaux chez le poisson-zèbre, avec certains individus recherchant la companie de leurs congénères, tandis que d’autres préfèrent qu’on les laisse tranquille.
En haut de l’image, vous pouvez observer un poisson-zèbre anti-social. En bas de l’image, vous pouvez observer un individu pro-social.

Et vous, dans quelle équipe êtes vous ?

Image #13 Astrocytes–Neurons: A Perfect Symbiosis

par / by: Imane Hadj-Aissa 

Description:

Astrocytes (green) and a neuronal network (pink) intertwine in coculture, reflecting a functional cellular symbiosis

Image #14 The Excitatory Synaptic Nebula Within Acute Brain Tissue

par / by: Kamylle Thériault 

Description:

This is a stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy image of an acute mouse brain slice. This super-resolution technique enables the study of protein organization and morphology at the nanoscopic scale. Two distinct neuronal circuits are labelled via viral injections: in green, GABAergic neurons expressing somatostatin, and in orange, pyramidal neurons belonging to the cortico-accumbal circuit, critically involved in the emotional response to stress.

Two types of excitatory synaptic proteins are immunostained: PSD-95 in magenta and VGLUT1 in cyan. The resulting fluorescent signals form synaptic “nebulae,” whose analysis gives deeper insight into the synaptic architecture of neurons involved in stress-related mechanisms.

Image #15 Neurons over Astrocytes

par / by: Angie Milena Bustos Rangel 

Description:

Human iPSC-derived neurons stained for MAP2 (gray) grow atop a supportive layer of astrocytes labeled with GFAP (magenta). This coculture highlights the structural complexity and intimate cellular interactions that sustain neuronal development and function.

Image #16 Synaptic chit-chat in a larval zebrafish’s brain.

par / by: Marc Lebordais 

Description:

Under the light of the microscope, synapses shine bright like diamonds! Following an optimized immunostaining and mounting of a zebrafish larva, we are diving into its developing brain. There, synapses undergo great work to support proper conversations among brain cells and across brain regions. This array of shiny clusters are different pre-synaptic (cyan) and post-synaptic (magenta) proteins zoomed-in from pallium, optic tectum and cerebellum (top to down). Although very dense, we are able to uncover discrepancies in the synapses morphology by relying on super-resolution STED microscopy. This work open new avenues to unravelling the local-to-regional synaptic connectivity may provide early signs of disrupted neural communication involved in a range of neurodevelopmental disorders. Image in collaboration with Julia Chabbert (PhD candidate co-supervised by Dre. Flavie Lavoie-Cardinal).

Image #17 Une segmentation presque parfaite

par / by: Odessa Tanvé 

Description:

L’image présentée est une image de microscopie confocale combinée à une segmentation réalisée avec MiMoSeT un outil d’apprentissage profond. On y voit en vert l’image des microglies marquée par la GFP dans le cerveau d’une larve de poisson-zèbre, et en magenta la segmentation d’instance (une à une) des microglies de l’image par MiMoSeT. Cette image démontre l’efficacité de l’outil d’apprentissage développé en partenariat avec la plateforme PREDIS.

Image #18 Insight into Nano Skeletal Anatomy

par / by: Julia Chabbert 

Description:

In the background, a confocal microscopy image reveals a dendrite and its synaptic arborization, in contact with neighboring axons. In the center, the structure of this dendrite is revealed using STED nanoscopy. We can appreciate the periodic organization of the actin cytoskeleton (orange) and adducin (cyan), key elements supporting the three-dimensional architecture of neurites. This nanoscopic organization, called the “periodic membrane-associated skeleton,” reshapes according to neuronal activity in order to support transport of biological material.

Image #19 Green brick road

par / by: Laila Blanc Arabe 

Description:

Infralimbic neurons that receive projections from the entorhinal cortex expressing EGFP.

Image #20 Cellular Architecture of the Mouse Striatum

par / by: Rouhollah Nazari 

Description:

This transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image reveals the cell body of a neuron in the mouse striatum, a brain region essential for motor control. Two dendritic processes, visible in lighter gray, extend from the soma, highlighting the structural complexity of striatal neurons. Captured at 1900× magnification, the image exposes fine intracellular organization that cannot be resolved with light microscopy.

The tissue was prepared from 50-µm-thick brain sections, enabling detailed visualization of neuronal architecture at the ultrastructural level. While the exact neuronal subtype cannot be identified from morphology alone, this image offers a striking glimpse into the cellular landscape of the striatum and underscores the power of electron microscopy to explore the hidden details of the brain. This experiment is part of my PhD research project which is focusing in VGLUT3 in the striatal cholinergic interneurons and its role in Parkinson’s disease and L-Dopa induced dyskinesia.